Imperial Landscapes

These guys are the best! . M yard looks amazing. Such a transformation. They were professional and friendly. I love everything hey did. They did what they said they would do when they said they would do it. I highly recommend this crew.

We recently replaced our failing retaining wall about 100 ft long and 4 ft high along our front driveway. We had Quotes from two contractors and they were right in line with each other. We had used imperial landscapes for a previous project so elected to go with him again. His crew was great, same as last time. The project took longer than originally expected thanks to lots and lots of heavy rain. Michael’s crew always left a clean and tidy workspace when they packed up every day. The project ended with exactly the items agreed on, retaining wall, back into the hill further than before to widen our drive, extended culvert for a wider connection to the street, lights, and a rail for the stairs. It looks great and we know it was built right. The old (1960s ish) block wall they demolished had no footing, our new one does and proper drainage. It looks fantastic too.

Michael and his team were by far one of the best lawn and landscaping services I have encountered. Work was consulted and done in an extremely professional way, with the worksite immaculately cleaned every evening. Would love to have them work with us again!

We are a house on a hill. We recently had some work done by another contractor that resulted in a drainage issue on the upper side of our home. Michael reviewed the area, listened to our description of the water intrusion into the crawl space, and provided a solution. He and his team installed a French drain against our home, with a sealant on the side of our crawl space and gravel in place. He also connected our downspouts and ran the drain to our backyard away from the house. The French drain is the last line of defense, prior to the surface water reaching it he created a swell down to a drain connected to the same drainage pipe. The whole area is topped off in river rock. They had to excavate, and install the new drainage, and river rock and included sod to help cover the muddy expanse we had. The area looks better than it ever has. Michael was communicative, timely, and trustworthy. We are highly pleased with the result, and his work saved our newly finished half basement. A couple weeks after it was installed we had a record rain (February 2020) and the drainage worked perfectly. No water intrusion in our crawl space. Michael did exactly what he said he’d do and we would use him again.

Communication before and throughout the process was very good. Crew was very good in terms of work ethic, manners and competency. Very pleased with the quality of the workmanship and the finished product. Would definitely use them again and recommend them.

Our project was managed extremely well. Michael is creative, detail oriented and a good communicator. He helped us design an outdoor living space that uniquely fits our needs. My husband and I especially appreciate his ongoing responsiveness and availability. Michael is a person of integrity and his staff is top notch. You won't find a better company for landscaping and exterior design services.

Michael Dodson is an artist and our yard became his canvas. He is a visionary and can also think of every little detail. His install team was fabulous. They arrived each day for the three weeks of demolition and then rebuilding on time and made sure everything was stored away and cleaned up at the end of each workday. They were all quite professional and very accommodating. Michael turned our yard into something you would experience at a resort. It’s magnificent! Michael is the Best contractor that we have had the opportunity to work with regardless of the trade. A +++

Imperial is the BEST. We were new to the area and needed extensive work done in our yard. After contacting SEVERAL other companies and "getting the continuous run-around" we contacted Imperial. It was in between the Christmas and New Years holiday and I emailed just to get it out of the way. Michael responded ASAP, introduced himself, and said we would get together after the holidays. He did JUST AS HE SAID HE WOULD (a new thing for us) and the rest was history. He and his AWESOME team have actually come back and have done several projects at our house. Our last project, a re-do of our entire backyard due to our putting in a pool, was met with several challenges--not of their doing. During the entire process I said time and time again that I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT THEM! They can do SO MUCH, but we only wish they could do EVERYTHING! You won't get better workers than them. Now...on to think about what they can come back and do this Spring....

The cheapest estimate, a perfect job, at an earliest date than anticipated, with no issue.

Michael and his crew are top-notch and hardworking. Would recommend his company to anyone. Got everything we wanted done.

Approximately one year after install. I had over 10 trees and 5 bushes installed. Initially Michael was very responsive and professional, but as I had more work done and requested additional quotes his attention completely disappeared. More than half the trees and one of the bushes have died, despite my efforts to save them. As I have found out since the work was done the plants recommended by Imperial were particularly finicky and did not suit the purposes I requested (shade, view blocking). In addition to that the imperial team planted on my neighbors property. Upon contacting Michael with these issues he was unresponsive and once rather short with me, but after clearing out a couple thousand dollars in dead trees I had to replace I've opted to do my yard work myself. I waited a year to write this review so I could let everyone know how it actually turned out. I would consider hiring Imperial again for a simple job like clearing brush or putting down river rock, but I would never take their recommendation on what trees to plant. Do your own research on the plants. The positive take away is I've learned a lot about what not to do!

Michael was great to work with. Came out right away, brought multiple examples to look at, listened to what I wanted and created an amazing space! We are thrilled with the way the pavers turned out and made a useless part of our yard an oasis.

Excellent. Michael and his team were professional and did excellent work.

Michael and his team did a wonderful job. We met with several companies to get plans and quotes and Michael offered the best ideas. He listened to what we wanted but also offered different options that we hadn’t thought of. He was creative with his plans and very honest upfront about how much things would cost and helped with ideas to stay within our budget. Throughout the project he was great to work with, very professional, helpful with our questions and concerns, and always very responsive. His team stayed within the discussed budget and time frame, and we are thrilled with the final result. We now have a beautiful backyard and it turned out even better than we were expecting. We would definitely recommend Imperial Landscapes and wouldn’t hesitate to hire them again!

Went well Michael and his crew are timely. The problems may be due to Michael having his first child or illness of his wife, but I would say they need to more closely supervised. There were several items that were thrown out that should not have been, Michael "forgot" some of our requests, the finished patio is awesome, the drainage and sod, we shall see.

Mostly all was done well - It would be best if you can be there supervise as they "forget" things. Now Michael just has his first child and his wife was ill, but none the less, this business. I don't like the sod lay, not level. Had to catch a drainage issue, good thing I saved rocks they threw what I had saved for them, one patio block not glued down, they pull an outlet from the back fence, I pay to have it put back, they then use half of it for lighting that was an add on their part, missed it on initial quote. Just too many little things to rate them well.

Michael and his Imperial Landscape crew, Hugo and Zach, did an absolutely INCREDIBLE job for us. I will go into probably way too much detail about the amazing job they did for us below, but here is the gist: We have zero complaints with the job Imperial Landscapes did for us and about a million absolutely glowing things to say. We were so worried about such a big project and spending so much money and can’t feel more lucky and thrilled to have found Michael and his crew. Their attention to detail, honesty, hard work, artisanship, craftsmanship, perfectionism and professionalism were outstanding. I would recommend them to anyone. With a project this size, you would expect a large disruption to your home life but our only minor inconvenience was having to park our cars on the street. Michael’s years of experience showed as everything was perfectly orchestrated and the end result was the totally transformed backyard of our dreams. So we had a big project. Our backyard was a sloping, jungle of a nightmare. A very old cinderblock wall held up our driveway and house and was starting to fail. It ran the entire width of our house and wrapped around the sides and up the driveway. All this to say, it was a very long and important wall. Beyond the wall was a steeply sloped, weed and scrub-tree mess of a yard. We knew it was going to be a huge undertaking and we were terrified to start and pick the wrong company. We meet with three companies and right away Michael set himself apart. He was upfront and honest about how big a project it was going to be and took an hour plus talking us through what he recommended and why. He warned that he wasn’t going to be the cheapest but that he did quality to work and liked to do things the right way. In hindsight, that was probably the understatement of the world. To echo the other reviews here, Michael not only does things the right way, with no corner cutting, but he is a perfectionist who takes pride in his work and doing a good job for others. He’s also one of the nicest, most honest people you’ll meet and his crew are nice, super hardworking guys. They work on one job at a time, so when they are on your job, you see them every day until it’s done. In our case, that was four weeks which was right on schedule. They arrived on time and worked their butts off the entire day, every day. I work from home, so I got to witness all this firsthand. Even more impressive was the organization and what looked like effortless timing and choreography of a thousand moving parts. Equipment, blocks, wood, dirt, gravel, etc. arrived as needed, deposited in front of our house and whisked quickly down the driveway into the backyard before I even knew it had arrived. In other words, there was no lag in work time, waiting for something to arrive. It was seamless and super efficient and even my neighbors remarked on how organized it all was. After weeks of what looked like back-breaking work, we ended up with a entirely transformed backyard that we couldn’t have imagined before. After tearing down the old wall and getting rid of all the weeds and scrub trees, they brought in tons and tons of dirt and leveled the lower yard. Michael brought in even more dirt than was planned to make sure it was as level as envisioned, at no additional cost. The new wall was built with Keystone Compact and is about 8 feet tall, complete with all the bells and whistles such as drainage, sleeves (for future water and electrical) and geogrids every couple of feet and so many other details. My engineer husband, who is very meticulous, was very pleased. The upper yard was extended out about 3-4 feet and a picket fence was put along the top of the wall to keep our toddler (or anyone else) from falling off the tall wall. Both upper and lower yards were seeded (sod was out of our budget so Michael worked with us on a good alternative). Also, a detail that I loved that Michael recommended was the wall curving up and into the stairs and became the walls of the stairs which looks amazing. They also did a second, shorter wall (about 3 feet tall) that runs halfway across the width of the yard and curves into the bigger wall and stairs. Michael also spent a good amount of time discussing with me and working on an overall plan for our new yard. I ended up with a detailed plan for our big new yard that includes beds, plants, ideas for a future patio and swing and where to best place our compost bins and future playhouse. We did this toward to end of the project, when the grass seed and hay was down, so he took me down there and sprayed painted on the hay where everything could go and really helped me visualize it. His recommendations were all spot on, well thought out and very practical. We now have a plan that we can implement in stages moving forward as budget and time allow. In other words, we never received any pressure at all from Michael to go above our budget — quite the opposite. I could go on and on about how pleased we were with Imperial Landscapes. So many details, like how their clean up after the job was amazing and included blowing our driveway and our neighbors’ screened porch and yard and power washing our driveway. How the only subcontractor they had to bring in was to replace the strip of cement they had to tear out of our driveway where the wall ran along side it. All the endless questions Michael answered. You just can’t go wrong with these guys.

Michael Dodson and his team did an outstanding job on my yard! This was the third landscape project for my yard. Needless to say, I was reluctant to proceed considering the cost of the project. The quote was itemized, 3 pages. I interviewed 3 companies. All were similar in pricing. I chose Imperial Landscaping after thorough, detailed research and the interview with Mr. Dodson. His website has limited photos of his projects but Angie's List provides more photos. Imperial is dedicated to new projects so you don't have to listen to timelines re: maintenance contracts, etc...I had to wait 8-10 weeks just as he anticipated. The initial timeline was approximately 2.5 weeks. The job was completed in less than 8 days. Michael's team did a fantastic job and cleaned up the area at the end of each day. My neighbors complimented specifically regarding the daily clean up. Michael is flexible and gives direction and an explanation to his design and thought processes. He's easy to reach via texting and phone. He's busy BUT worth the wait!

We are very satisfied with the results. Mike and his crew are real pros. They are easy to work with and the quality is outstanding.

I want to start  by apologizing to Michael for adding this so late. 
I had lived at the house for over a year with only a couple of times my sump pump turned on and drainage water through my front yard until Fall 2015 and 3-4 inches of rain average per storm and 7 inches one night caused flooding in the basement. I called many different people for bids and went with Michael, after I put off deciding for 3 months and feared flooding with every storm.
The plan was for a main 18 inch drain where most of the water entered my yard and 5 other small drains along the path to catch excess water and take it to my catch drain at the front and opposite side of my home. we went with an 8 inch instead of 6 inch pipe incase backyard water management was ever required. They tied in 3 gutter drains into the system, my sump exhaust was tied in as well. the front yard was graded for improved water control.
the poorly planned drain at the door for the basement was repiped and connected to the system, the wall waterproofed, and new steps and railing installed with a walkway out to the yard. A crepe myrtle was sacrificed to allow for better piping through the yard and Michael assisted us in finding a new replacement in the style my wife wanted which really made her happy. then sod work and river rocks, and mulch to complete the area.
3-4 different people came up to me to tell me that the crew was there early and worked "hard" everyday. Michael was out there working with his crew at times. 
We completed the job with a sub contract of concrete to finish the crumbling asphalt. Wright concrete did a good, fast, and professional job. 
the only low rating I gave was for responsiveness which was hit and miss because this man is trying to run a business and working for the business. He was down one major worker and had one sick which stretch him thin at times and made contact difficulty at times. He was truly apologetic and sincere when this occurred.
Of course, since having the work done I have not had the same water amounts to truly test the system but I can sleep at night now when it rains without running around the yard in the middle of the night with a flashlight, a shovel, and rain boots.
Thank you

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Michael designed a beautiful patio and fire pit for us. He was easy to work with, very considerate of all our wishes, and made himself available to us whenever we had questions. He dealt with our challenging HOA process with ease and he even worked over time to stay within our contracted time frame after weeks of rain threatened to delay the project. We loved our experience and would definitely recommend him to everyone!

Michael worked with us for the last 2 months on a plan to install a parking area for our RV.  We started out with grand plans but had to whittle them down to a more realistic plan that we could afford.  Michael stuck with us through it all.  The easy part was to install a fence around the back yard for the dogs.  Half is privacy fence and half is wire fence.  It looks absolutely wonderful.  The pickets in the privacy fence are individually installed so it follows the contours of the land and looks professionally done, which it is.
The hard part was trying to find a way to carve out space in a hill side for our RV that didn't cost a fortune.  Michael came up with an option we could afford.  He graded the hillside and used the removed dirt to recontour the back yard to a more gentle slope.  He extended the culvert on the street and widen the driveway enough to get our 40 foot RV in.  He laid sod on the new hillside and put out grass seed and hay on the rest of the dirt in the back yard.  
Michael was around for almost all of the work.  He helped his guys with some of the fencing and he did most of the work on the driveway.  It took awhile to get everything done due to weather but it got done.
I recommend Micheal because he's picky and a prefectionist which is what you want in a contractor, and he's easy to work with.  He even saved one of our old dogs who ran off down the street without us noticing, and almost got hit by a car.